308 research outputs found
The first legal mortgagor: a consumer without adequate protection?
This article contends that the UK governmentâs attempt to create a well-functioning consumer credit market will be undermined if it fails to reform the private law framework relating to the first legal mortgage. Such agreements are governed by two distinct regulatory regimes that are founded upon very different conceptions of the mortgagor. The first, the regulation of financial services overseen by the Financial Conduct Authority, derives from public law and is founded upon a conception of the mortgagor as âconsumerâ. The other is land law, private law regulation implemented by the judiciary and underpinned by a conception of the mortgagor as âlandownerâ. Evidence suggests that the operation of these two regimes prevents mortgagors from receiving fair and consistent treatment. The current reform of financial services regulation therefore will change only one part of this governance regime and will leave mortgagors heavily reliant upon a regulator that still has to prove itself. What this article argues is that reform of the rules of private law must also be undertaken with the aim of initiating a paradigm shift in the conception of the mortgagor from âlandownerâ to âconsumerâ. Cultural shifts of this kind take time but the hope is that this conceptual transformation will occur in time to deter the predicted rise in mortgage possessions
Experiencing sense of place in virtual and physical Avebury.
This paper discusses the findings from a project to construct a simulation of Avebury henge, a Late Neolithic/ Early Bronze Age monument in SW Britain, in a 3D, virtual world environment. The aims of the study were to explore the archaeological research and interpretation necessary to plan and construct such a simulation in an interactive, online environment, to identify which aspects of visualisation and soundscape design appear to have the greatest impact upon usersâ sense of place in the virtual simulation and to explore the experiences of a small group of users in the virtual simulation and the effects of those experiences upon their sense of place at the physical site. The findings from this project demonstrated that in undertaking a simulation of an ancient site, a core set of sources need to be selected to create the main parts of the simulation. There is often much debate in archaeological literature regarding the way in which archaeological findings are interpreted, and a different virtual Avebury would be constructed if different interpretations had been chosen. Any simulation of an ancient site should therefore clearly recognise and state the basis upon which it has been designed. The evaluation showed that responses to virtual environments, and the resulting effect upon responses to physical environments, are complex and personal, resulting in a range of experiences and perceptions, suggesting that the range of usersâ experiences might be a more significant issue than attempting to find any general consensus on user reactions to simulated ancient sites
Diagnostics of the Synchronization of Self-Oscillatory Systems by an External Force with Varying Frequency with the Use of Wavelet Analysis
A diagnostics method based on a continuous wavelet transform is proposed.
This method makes it possible to diagnose the presence of synchronization of
the oscillations of a self-excited oscillator locked by an external force with
a linearly modulated frequency and to distinguish such a situation from the
case when an external signal leaks into self-oscillations; i.e., the signals
are summed without a change in the self-oscillation frequency. The method's
efficiency is shown with the use of a Van der Pol generator and experimental
physiological data as examples.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure
A counterfactual approach to measure the impact of wet grassland conservation on UK breeding bird populations
Wet grassland wader populations in the United Kingdom have experienced severe declines over the last three decades. To help mitigate these declines, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has restored and managed lowland wet grassland nature reserves to benefit these and other species. However, the impact that these reserves have on bird population trends has not been experimentally evaluated, as appropriate control populations do not readily exist. In this study, we compare population trends from 1994 â 2018 for five bird species of conservation concern that breed on these nature reserves with counterfactual trends using matched breeding bird survey observations. Our results showed positive effects of conservation interventions for all four wader species that these reserves aim to benefit: Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus), Redshank (Tringa totanus), Curlew (Numenius arquata) and Snipe (Gallinago gallinago). There was no positive effect of conservation interventions on reserves for the passerine, Yellow Wagtail (Motacilla flava). We compared reserve trends with three different counterfactuals, based on different scenarios of how reserve populations could have developed in the absence of conservation, and found that reserve trends performed better regardless of the counterfactual used. Our approach using monitoring data to produce valid counterfactual controls is a broadly applicable method allowing largeâscale evaluation of conservation impact
Raised tone reveals ATP as a sympathetic neurotransmitter in the porcine mesenteric arterial bed
The relative importance of ATP as a functional sympathetic neurotransmitter in blood vessels has been shown to be increased when the level of preexisting vascular tone or pressure is increased, in studies carried out in rat mesenteric arteries. The aim of the present study was to determine whether tone influences the involvement of ATP as a sympathetic cotransmitter with noradrenaline in another species. We used the porcine perfused mesenteric arterial bed and porcine mesenteric large, medium and small arteries mounted for isometric tension recording, because purinergic cotransmission can vary depending on the size of the blood vessel. In the perfused mesenteric bed at basal tone, sympathetic neurogenic vasocontractile responses were abolished by prazosin, an α1- adrenoceptor antagonist, but there was no significant effect of α,ÎČ-methylene ATP, a P2X receptor-desensitizing agent. Submaximal precontraction of the mesenteric arterial bed with U46619, a thromboxane A2 mimetic, augmented the sympathetic neurogenic vasocontractile responses; under these conditions, both α,ÎČ-methylene ATP and prazosin attenuated the neurogenic responses. In the mesenteric large, medium and small arteries, prazosin attenuated the sympathetic neurogenic contractile responses under conditions of both basal and U46619-raised tone. α,ÎČ-Methylene ATP was effective in all of these arteries only under conditions of U46619- induced tone, causing a similar inhibition in all arteries, but had no significant effect on sympathetic neurogenic contractions at basal tone. These data show thatATP is a cotransmitter with noradrenaline in porcine mesenteric arteries; the purinergic component was revealed under conditions of partial precontraction, which is more relevant to physiological conditions
Enrichment of trace elements in the clay size fraction of mining soils
Reactive waste dumps with sulfide minerals pro-
14 mote acid mine drainage (AMD), which results in water and
15 soil contamination by metals and metalloids. In these systems,
16 contamination is regulated by many factors, such as mineral-
17 ogical composition of soil and the presence of sorption sites
18 on specific mineral phases. So, the present study dedicates
19 itself to understanding the distribution of trace elements in
20 different size fractions (<2-mm and <2-ÎŒm fractions) of min-
21 ing soils and to evaluate the relationship between chemical
22 and mineralogical composition. Cerdeirinha and Penedono,
23 located in Portugal, were the waste dumps under study. The
24 results revealed that the two waste dumps have high degree of
25 contamination by metals and arsenic and that these elements
26 are concentrated in the clay size fraction. Hence, the higher
27 degree of contamination by toxic elements, especially arsenic
28 in Penedono as well as the role of clay minerals, jarosite, and
29 goethite in retaining trace elements has management implica-
30 tions. Such information must be carefully thought in the reha-
31 bilitation projects to be planned for both waste dumps
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